Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday defended the response to the new coronavirus outbreak by his administration, which has yet to impose a lockdown to stop the disease spreading. The COVID-19 outbreak in sanctions-hit Iran is one of the deadliest outside China, where the disease originated. Rouhani’s government says the virus has killed 1,135 people and infected 17,161 others in the month since it first emerged in the Islamic republic.